


The Affliction of Knowledge

by jessieflower



Series: A Trail of Exes [1]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alex and Maria supporting each other, F/M, M/M, Maria's POV, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:14:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21553696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessieflower/pseuds/jessieflower
Summary: Maria has crafted three careful rules that must be followed while dating Michael Guerin. Alex Manes, however, can not know about them.
Relationships: Maria DeLuca/Michael Guerin, Michael Guerin/Alex Manes, Michael Guerin/Maria Deluca, alex manes/michael guerin
Series: A Trail of Exes [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1983278
Comments: 8
Kudos: 90





	The Affliction of Knowledge

Maria had long ago accepted the fact that Alex could withstand a greater amount of pain than she could. His whole childhood was a primer in how to hide abuse in plain sight. She hadn’t even caught on until he’d shown up at her house with a bloody nose.

Alex telling her that Michael was the guy from the museum was some fucked up reflection of how she was always unable to see the things Alex put forth effort to hide. She knew them both and had never been able to put together the pieces when she ought to have. Now that she knew (though it was still only the barest of details), there were pieces of memories that fit together. They came to her, unbidden, while she was cleaning. Like the memory of Michael asking her if she knew any details about Alex’s injury when that spread around town - what she thought was a curious question that he might have had about any of their classmates who’d gone overseas was now something more.

What that something was still wasn’t entirely clear because Michael and Alex were both making it clear that they weren’t together. And it was Alex who was attempting to reassure her this time. 

“I’m happy for you.” Alex even had the audacity to smile. There were cracks. His aura was wrong, it didn’t completely look like his eyes believed the smile, but he was saying it. “Stop worrying about me. Everything is okay.”

As if she could ever trust Alex to honestly define his mental state to anyone. He was “happy” to just be able to get away from his Dad and Roswell to go to bootcamp. He’d been “good” after the fight with Valenti at prom. He’d been “fine” with a fractured rib. She’s not exactly sure where “everything is okay” falls on that scale but there’s a mustard color to his aura that is undeniably the presence of pain.

“Stop saying that,” Maria demands. “I had every intention of talking to you-“

“You couldn’t have known that he was going to show up.” Alex shrugs his shoulders. “Plenty of other guys out there. I’m sure they’ll be lining up any day now.” It was meant to be a joke, and Maria really does try to smile. The only problem is that she can’t think of anyone in town she could imagine Alex being happy with.

* * *

In the weeks that follow their conversation Maria becomes suspicious of everyone close to her. Michael falls back into old habits of drinking, not paying for the drinks, fighting, and getting thrown in the drunk tank. At first, the only reason Maria can even think that he’s doing this is that he and Alex are over. Which is not particularly useful when she can’t call Alex about him. That’s Rule Number One. Alex isn’t aware that there are such rules but Maria made them for his benefit and she hopes they’re helping. 

She asks Michael about her theory after another night of the same cycle. He scoffs, “Not everything is about Manes.”

Which only makes her more convinced that it _is_ about Alex since she’s never heard Michael refer to Alex by his last name before.

The second time she asks him, he’s drunk. “You’re drinking like you want to fight again,” she points out.

“I promise not to get any blood on the good furniture,” he bites back. 

“I just want to know why.” Maria gestures to him. “This had ended. You were drinking a healthier amount. There was no fighting. If it’s not Alex than what is it?”

“You know, since you’re a bartender, you really shouldn’t be complaining about people drinking too much,” he attempts to deflect. Like he used to whenever Maria asked anything this side of too serious. 

Maria jutted her chin, not willing to deal with another night of this. “That’s only reserved for paying customers. If you’re not going to give me a serious answer, you can leave.”

He throws back his last shot, then turns his back on the bar. He eyes follow him, ensuring he does actually leave.

* * *

A couple days later Alex and Kyle show up. It looks like Kyle is leading this particular drinking excursion if his hands on Alex’s shoulders, directing him to the the pool table are meant to mean anything. Kyle orders their usual beers.

“How is he doing?” Maria asks, hedging her bets on how Kyle will react to her asking. 

The first time Kyle had seen Maria and Michael together he’d seemed angry. Which had made absolutely no sense to Maria until she’d realized Kyle and Alex had become close again. Neither of them detailed why in terms that actually made sense. Alex gave her some story about Kyle needing something from the cabin. Kyle gave her some story about running into Alex and wanting to make up for their past. If their stories had matched a little closer she thinks she could have believed either one.

She couldn’t understand why they were either both lying or just hadn’t been on the same page to tell the truth - maybe one of the stories was true. For a moment she thought the only understandable conclusion was that they were secretly dating. But then she laughed at herself, thinking it to be an illogical jump.

Kyle smiles. “He agreed to go on a date with a visiting surgeon. Who is very hot, I might add.”

“You have a good gauge for that sort of thing?” Maria laughs.

“I have an excellent gauge for that-“

“No, he doesn’t,” Alex interrupts. He takes a seat at the bar. “They have two more rounds, then we’re up,” he tells Kyle, motioning towards the pool table. “Visiting surgeon was the one who asked about me.”

“If I had the chance I would have brought you up,” Kyle insists. 

“Anyhow,” Alex turns to look at Maria. “We’re getting out of town and going on a date on Saturday.”

“You must tell me all the details,” Maria orders.

“Yea, yea, no keeping secrets for a decade,” he promises. It was the most comfortable any reference to either of their relationships with Michael has been - and it brought Maria back to her concern about her boyfriend’s avoidance of her questions lately.

“Have you seen Max recently? He hasn’t answered any of my texts.”

Kyle immediately looks away while Alex gets that look on his face again. The one he’d had just before he’d admitted that it was Guerin who he’d been with. “No. I think Liz mentioned something about a mental health break?”

Liz made no mention of that to her when she’d originally asked which now seemed odd. Though Maria supposes it could have happened after that, she would have expected Liz to give her that update immediately.

* * *

Things with Michael continue to be in this strange state that she can’t quite figure out. Some nights he seems like he wants to be punished for something - picking fights with people she didn’t even think had thrown a punch before. Other days he was that guy she always enjoys flirting with who just had a little bit of an edge to him. And then, she’s learned, there was this whole other side who would do anything for people he cared about.

Maria saw it in the way he cared for Isobel. 

Maria say it in the way Michael apologized to her after they get into a fight. 

The way he had the same reaction whenever the two of them were touching and Alex walks into the Pony. They both immediately pull away, afraid of Alex seeing any kind of physical representation of the relationship he knows exists. 

That was Maria’s second rule. If Michael and Maria were holding hands, they were to be dropped when one of them caught sight of Alex. If they were sitting in a booth together, each of them to put just a little more space between themselves. 

Maria was glad for one thing they don’t have to fight about. 

However, what she didn’t expect to realize is that Alex and Michael were fighting. She didn’t even know that they were speaking outside of the times they ran into each other when she was with Michael. Which, she supposes, was more of the same when it came to the previous ten years. 

Once again the two of them have a way of making her feel like an idiot for not catching on earlier. Like before, it’s only when she sees physical evidence that she even realizes.

“She should know,” Alex argues. There’s frustration in his voice, like he’s said this before, though Maria doesn’t know where in this conversation she is. Maria’s not even sure that he, Michael, or Liz are aware that she’s entered the Ortecho apartment above the Crashdown. “She was as close to Rosa as any of-“

Despite leaning forward Alex is suddenly falling backwards. The movement doesn’t make any sense to her.

“Maria,” Liz gasps but Maria hardly hears her. She’s focused on how scared Michael looks, his eyes on Alex, who is on the floor.

“Stupid prosthetic,” Alex mutters. He won’t look back at Michael as he gets back up. Maria’s eyes are still on Michael, who looks like it’s physically hurting him not to reach out to help Alex. “I have to go. Sorry to leave when you’re just getting here.” Alex gives Maria a small hug on his way out. 

It quickly becomes a bad night that ends with Michael crying, though he made sure to fit in the fighting before that.

* * *

There’s a shift after that night - a decision made by a committee of all of Maria’s friends that she didn’t even know were secretly working on different pieces of a project together. There’s a lot of information that is explained very quickly.

As it happens, the Deluca’s were just as involved in Project Shepard as the Manes’s and the Valenti’s were, at one time. They were the chemists and the only way they were going to be able to bring Max back was if they figured out how to charge up Michael or Isobel. The working theory was that if they could find a better sample of the pollen there was a possibility they could make something that did the opposite to them.

It was a lot. 

But it meant she could see everything now. Every conversation which made her feel a lot less lost and lonely. She got to have Rosa again. And then there was the one thing that maybe she didn’t really want to see - how Michael and Alex did their best not to be drawn towards each other. 

And yet, Maria had the evidence that suggested it was Alex who had been trying to bring Maria into this the longest. Not Michael.

* * *

She doesn’t ask Michael about whether it was his telekinesis that pushed Alex that night. She knows the answer based on how he looked when he realized what he’d done. 

She doesn’t ask Alex why he seems to work longer hours than anyone else trying to analyze as much data as he possibly can. She knows the answer is something very tangled with his feelings for Michael that he won’t talk about with her. 

Sometime after Max is back with them she asks, “When did you know about Michael and Alex?”

To his credit, he answers honestly, “When Michael got involved in that fight between Alex and Kyle on prom night. I’d never seen him put himself in the middle of a fight like that.”

That seemed to be the rule - the only way any of them seemed to know about it was when something happened right in front of their faces that they can’t ignore. So much for being psychic.

“I think his feelings for you are just as strong,” Max assures her.

Maria acknowledges the comment with a smile. She knows that she should appreciate it, wrap it around her while she looks the other way. But she can’t, not after watching the way they work together. She wants to tell Max he is wrong, that things need to end so she could be the Alex to someone’s Michael. 

She just gives Max a small pat on his shoulder, before she walks back over to the fire. He has missed so much.

* * *

The alien problem’s don’t stop there. Or the human ones - like how to allow Rosa to live in the daylight again without being shuffled in a hoodie from one location to the next. 

But someone always has a plan - usually Alex or Max coming up with the specifics that determines who is going to do the distracting, who gets the intel, what the the escape plan is. 

The current plan is for Isobel to do the distracting. However, after one last sweep of the guards on this one Alex shakes his head. 

“It won’t work,” he announces.

Max shakes his head. “Yes, it will. Isobel is great at distracting men.”

Alex looks to Isobel while he takes his shirt off. “Kyle give me your shirt.”

Isobel smirks, then raises her hands in surrender. “I concede.”

“No.” Michael starts shaking his head. 

“You’re more essential to the mission than I am.”

Max looks lost again, he slowly opens his mouth to say something. “The guard is gay,” Maria explains before he could embarrass himself.

“Kyle is the least essential part of this mission,” Michael argues.

“Kyle can’t flirt with men, and neither can Max” Alex points out. “You can and I can. Those are our options.”

It works. They get what they need, they aren’t seen. 

Michael is still angry.

* * *

Maria watches them in Michael’s bunker. They work together, like they need to. Yet, they also work against each other. Michael constantly check’s Alex’s work - like he doesn’t trust him. While Alex constantly tries to find more space between the two of them. If Michael takes a step towards him his eyes always flicker to Maria who pretends that she wasn’t watching them moments before.

It’s funny to think about how she wanted this. Maria wanted to know everything. She wanted the three of them to be in a room together. She wanted Alex to date other people - which, he was. Too many, actually. Like he’s already found the thing that fit and, now, is trying to force things that were slightly off into its spot.

Maria realizes that she has to break up with Michael. 

Because whether or not Maria wants to admit it, this is her third rule for dating Michael. If it is clear he still has feelings for Alex then she would not be the person that keeps the two of them apart. 

Though this benefits everyone in a way, if she’s being entirely honest with herself this rule benefits Maria’s self interested too. She can’t bare the pain the way Alex can. Maria made an attempt to fool herself into believing Michael’s promises that Alex’s feelings were no longer reciprocated. She let Alex assure her that everything would be fine once he healed. She let herself believe for far too long that the pain of losing her closeness with Alex is all she would have to carry. 

She didn’t foresee the pain of watching Michael slide back as if he hadn’t grown in the past year. Or the pain of knowing you were purposefully kept in the dark for so long with your significant other being the leader of the camp that was decidedly against bringing you in. 

But most of all, Maria can’t bare the pain of keeping two people in love with one another apart.


End file.
